The indictments of four Egyptian
security agents over the 2016 kidnapping, torture and murder of
Italian doctoral student Giulio Regeni were suspended Thursday
night as a Rome judge ruled they had not been properly informed
they were being tried in absentia.
A judge said it could not be "presumed" that the four knew about
the proceedings because of the heavy media coverage, as a
previous judge had ruled.
It said the four had to be "effectively" informed of the case
against them.
The ruling was a blow to the closely watched first international
examination of Egypt's controversial national security policy
which has brought widespread condemnation from rights groups.
"This is a setback but we will move forward," said Regeni family
attorney Alessandra Ballerini.
The judge sent the case back to the preliminary hearings stage
saying efforts to inform the four officers should be redoubled.
The Friuli-born student went missing in Cairo on January 25,
2016.
The brutalised body of the Cambridge University doctoral
researcher, who was working on the politically sensitive topic
of Egyptian street unions, was found a week later, on February
3, 2016, in a ditch on the road to Alexandria.
He had been tortured so badly his mother said she only
recognised him by the tip of his nose.
Ballerini told the court Thursday that fifteen of Regeni's bones
were fractured and five of his teeth smashed, while numbers had
been carved into his skin.
National Security General Tariq Sabir and his subordinates,
Colonels Athar Kamel Mohamed Ibrahim and Uhsam Helmi, and Major
Magdi Ibrahim Abdelal Sharif, were on trial at the third Court
of Assizes in Rome.
In an important signal, the Italian premier's office decided to
stand as a civil plaintiff in the case.
Also standing as plalnitiffs were Regeni's parents, Claudio
Regeni and Paola Deffendi, who were in court Thursday along with
Regeni's sister Irene.
Rome prosecutors say that Regeni, 28, was tortured for days,
resulting in "acute physical suffering" by being subjected to
kicks, punches, beaten with sticks and bats and cut with sharp
objects, and also being burned with red-hot objects and slammed
into walls.
Egypt's prosecutor general, Hamada al Sawi, has said "there is
insufficient evidence to prove the charges".
At various times Egypt has advanced differing explanations for
Regeni's death including a car accident, a gay lovers' tiff and
abduction and murder by an alleged kidnapping gang that was
wiped out after Regeni's documents were planted in their lair.
The head of the street hawkers union had fingered Regeni as a
possible spy.
Lack of cooperation on the case by Egypt led to Rome's
temporarily withdrawing its ambassador from Cairo for a spell.
But relations continued, a fact that the Regenis condemned, as
well as the sale of two Italian-built warships to Cairo.
The trial opened with Rome prosecutor Sergio Colaiocco saying
the four defendants had constantly tried to avoid a trial and
did not recognise that they were being tried in absentia.
Lawyers for Regeni's family said they wanted the truth after
years of cover-ups and defamation including an Egyptian film on
Regeni which they have also condemned.
Prosecutor Colaiocco denounced "a complex action of the four
defendants, and some of their colleagues, carried out since 2016
and which continued until recently, to block, slow down and
avoid that the trial would take place in Italy. For five years
they have been trying to avoid this", noting that "they are
feigning ignorance".
"Here we do not have conclusive evidence, a wiretap. However,
there are at least 13 elements, " the prosecutor said, "that
since 2016 until today, put together, show that the agents are
trying to avoid standing trial. The question is: why are the
defendants not here in this courtroom, are they unaware or
feigning ignorance? Defendants have the right to receive all
notifications regarding the trial but they must also choose
their domicile. Egypt on this matter never responded. In
general, out of the 64 rogatory letters sent to Cairo, 39 were
not replied to. We have done everything we could to carry out
this trial and I am convinced that today the four defendants
know that the first hearing is being held."
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi told the Visegrad group
Wednesday that Cairo would not accept diktats on human rights
from the EU.
The European Parliament has been among the many bodies to have
condemned the murder and called for Egypt to help bring the
perpetrators to justice.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA